WASPS, SOCIAL AND SOLITARY 



flying in and out among the plants, now high, now low, 

 and circling again and again around the spot. It looked 

 as though she had been puzzled and disturbed by the 

 presence of unaccustomed things. As soon as the survey 

 was over she went inside and closed the door, as though 

 its object had been not so much to strengthen her mem- 

 ory as to correct former impressions. 



The work of bringing in beetles goes on very irreg- 

 ularly, and as a rule not more than two or three are 

 stored in the course of a day. It is not unusual for cly- 

 peata to spend three or four hours away from home and 

 then come back without anything ; and often, even in 

 the middle of the day, she passes an hour or two in the 

 seclusion of her nest. We had several nests under obser- 

 vation for a week at a time without ever once seeing the 

 owners, although they were evidently occupied, since 

 they were sometimes open and sometimes closed. The 

 outer entrance is always left open when the wasp goes 

 away, although possibly access to the pockets may be 

 barred below; but when she enters she closes the door 

 unless she means to come out again at once. The closing 

 is sometimes effected by pushing the earth up backwards, 

 with the end of the abdomen; but the hole is rather too 

 large for this method, and more frequently the wasp 

 comes up head first, carrying a load of earth in her front 



